3. Big Show vs. Andre The Giant
Paul Wight, known as "The Giant" in WCW and The Big Show in WWF/E, was once billed as being the son of his opponent, Andre the Giant. He is a 7-time World Champion and the only wrestler in history to have held the WWE Championship, the World Heavyweight Championship, (WWE's version of) the ECW Championship and the now-defunct WCW Championship. He is two years away from being able to celebrate a massive (no pun intended) 20-year run at the top of the sport. Despite being legitimately huge (he stands at 7 foot tall and weighs 425lbs), Big Show is actually incredibly athletic. Most of us would probably find even the most basic tasks frustratingly difficult if we were the same size as Mr. Show, but he is able to keep up with today's cardio machines in the ring and also have good matches most of the time. Another amazing thing about Big Show is his willingness to put other, smaller wrestlers over and also to have a laugh at his own expense; these traits have kept him popular in WWE long after the novelty of his size has (if you'll pardon the pun) diminished somewhat due to overexposure. Andre the Giant, long considered to be the biggest pro wrestler of all time, was actually a little bit shorter than Big Show. Despite being billed as 7,4, Andre was actually somewhere between 6,10 and 7,0. Like Wight (and fellow wrestling legend Maurice Tillet aka The French Angel), Andre Roussimoff's great size was a result of acromegaly, which is a medical problem in which the pituitary gland over produces growth hormones (a condition that also affected Abraham Lincoln). Andre the Giant was perhaps the greatest draw in the history of pro wrestling; people loved him for his huge size as well as his majestic in-ring performances. If the only Andre matches you've seen took place in the late 1980's (his famous feuds with Hulk Hogan and Ultimate Warrior), then you might be wondering why I mention his ring work. By that time, injuries and illness had impeded Andre in his daily life and his in-ring ability was severely impaired. However, earlier in his career, the man was capable of a drop kick, I s**t you not. Imagine being dropkicked by Andre The Giant, just close your eyes and imagine that. Ouch. Though he only held the WWF Championship one time, Andre was one of the last wrestling champions who would easily have been capable of defeating anybody else in the company in a legitimate (shoot) contest. Nobody could have taken his belt away if he hadn't been willing to drop it. Today, the belt doesn't need to go to the toughest guy in the locker room, but to the biggest draw in the company (or, in a worrying trend, to people who play golf with Triple H), but back then, Andre was the biggest man in the business in more ways than one. Andre The Giant is the most beloved wrestler of all time, so fans will be bursting with excitement when his entrance music hits. The match begins with both men sizing each other up. Big Show is far more experienced at playing the heel and the fans won't be booing Andre no matter what he does. So, to draw heat from the crowd, Show can argue that he has always been held down by people expecting him to be Andre and so on... This will be a classic strongman contest, with plenty of strength tests and chest beating before the match truly begins. Overall, the villainous Big Show will resort to wielding some sort of foreign object, but Andre will prevail, drawing huge smiles from the crowd. Big Show will then attempt to retreat to the back, but Andre will invite him to join in the positive crowd reaction, setting the stage for a future tag team series. As I said before, one of Big Show's many talents is his ability to convincingly put an opponent over, which is something that Andre only did a few times in his career, so with both men working the crowd into a frenzy and a good story being told, this match would be an all-time classic.
WINNER: Andre The Giant